CREST Centre - South West College - Passivhaus Certified, BREEAM excellent and Zero Carbon - 50
Paul McAlister Architects were delighted to win an open tender for the provision of architect led design team services for the provision of the new CREST Centre for South West College Enniskillen. This project is one of the most sustainable projects in Ireland and will be the first commercial building in Northern Ireland that will achieve the Passive House Certification. The project is distinguished as it will achieve all of the following three sustainable credentials:
Passivhaus Certified for Energy efficient envelope and ventilation system
BREEAM excellent in terms of the BRE sustainable benchmark for UK commercials buildings
The building will also be Zero Carbon, this means that the building can provide, by renewable energy, it own source of heat and lighting.
Whilst a combination of these sustainable criteria has been attempted in other parts of the UK, this will be the first example in Northern Ireland or Ireland and will become a benchmark building for sustainability.
South West College is one of six Further and Higher Education Colleges in Northern Ireland and was formed as a result of the merger of the former Colleges of Fermanagh, Omagh and East Tyrone on 1 August 2007. South West College services the geographical area of Counties Tyrone and Fermanagh. There are five campus locations at Cookstown, Dungannon, Omagh, two at Enniskillen (main campus and Technology and Skills Centre) and a number of out centres. The College has approximately 500 full-time staff and a similar number of part-time staff and an annual budget of £39M. The college offers a wide range of vocational and non-vocational courses, training courses such as Training for Success, Steps to Work and provides a service to the community, local schools, business and industry. It provides courses ranging from basic skills to Higher National Diploma and Degree Level programmes.
The CREST centre will provide industry Research & Development, demonstration and testing facilities for new renewable energy products and sustainable technologies. The facilities will be used by small companies within the region who have ideas for new products but who currently do not have the physical and/or technical capacity to develop, test and commercialise these. Within CREST facilities and staff will be accessible to develop, demonstrate and test new technologies and show how these can be integrated practically and sensibly to achieve energy savings. The CREST centre will form one component of a wider bid for European funding to support Research & Development in renewable energy and smart technologies within small businesses in the border regions of Northern Ireland, Ireland and western Scotland.
The CREST centre will comprise of three areas; the Pavilion, Research & Development Lab and Hub. The Pavilion will be newly developed and the Hub and Research & Development lab will be integrated into the existing Skills Centre building.
The Hub will form the central office area within the CREST centre and will comprise modern office and meeting space where the CREST team will meet with companies to discuss their requirements and outline the services available. Within the reception area of the Hub, real time visual data monitoring screens will be located. These will display easy-to-understand graphs and tables to analyse the energy performance of a variety of renewable energy installations (e.g. wind turbines, solar panels) located within the region and provide useful data such as information on CO2 savings and energy output. The CREST centre in Enniskillen will form the core of a larger network of satellite facilities in Sligo, Cavan and Dumfries in Scotland, and modern electronic communication facilities will be required within the Hub to link with these sites (e.g. Videoconferencing, web conferencing etc). The hub will be accommodated in the existing building which will require adaptation. Within the Research & Development lab a range of advanced prototyping, testing and development facilities will be available to enable staff at the centre to support companies with practical hands-on new product development. The Research & Development lab will comprise a large workshop facility which can be divided into smaller project workspaces. It is envisaged that some of the CREST projects will involve the development of highly innovative ideas for which IP protection will be required and thus some of the project workspaces will need to be screened from public access to prevent disclosure issues. Equipment within the Research & Development lab will include a laboratory scale wind turbine, biomass heating apparatus, heat exchangers, heat pumps, solar heating and photovoltaic and various monitoring, testing and ancillary equipment. This lab facility is to be accommodated within existing accommodation which will require adaptation. The Pavilion area of the CREST centre will provide demonstration and testing facilities to showcase innovative products and processes and the use of renewable technologies in construction. The Pavilion will be designed to engage industry through experiencing (seeing, touching) new sustainable technologies and materials allowing for a deeper engagement in and understanding of the techniques on display. Products and processes will include new construction technologies – building materials e.g. hempcrete, insulation etc. and renewable energy applications e.g. heat pumps, solar panels. It is planned that the Pavilion will be a dynamic facility which will allow for annual/biannual reconfiguration to include emerging technologies.